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3 Things You’re Sharing Online That Could Expose You to Hackers

Cailey Rizzo·Sep 7, 2016

In the digital age, we all love to share. However, it is very very easy to share too much information about yourself and end up regretting it. (Yeah, we’re talking about identity theft.) So, before you share one more thing about yourself online, make sure it’s not the private information on this list.

1. Addresses: If you screenshot a map, make sure it doesn’t include frequent addresses like work or home. You never know who’s going to see that information and/or why they’ll want to find you… You may think, “yeah, well duh,” but there’s a secret way people can hack into your address info: Instagram. If you constantly have geotagging on while ‘gramming from your digs, someone can easily find that information from your map. Watch out!

2. Vacation deets: While it might be super fun to check into the local airport and say “I’m leaving on a jet plane!” someone could use your itinerary to figure out when you won’t be home and break into your house. Eeeek! Of course you can tell your buds when you’ll be back, but try not to broadcast the dates of your travel to your entire network.

3. Personal info: OK, so, a lot of information falls under this umbrella, and it can be used by creepy people in a lot of different ways. Don’t share information that is often used for password clues online. Things like the street you grew up on, your grandmother’s maiden name or your favorite teacher’s name don’t need to be sent out to your network. Same goes for information like your street address, birth date and even your bank. Hackers can use this information to easily wriggle into accounts.